Zero-setting device



Oct. 7, 1969 H. SOUPENNE ZERO-SETTING DEVICE 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Feb. 15, 1968 Oct. 7, 1969 H. scaumznme: 3,471,036

ZERO-SETTING DEVICE Filed Feb. 15. 1968 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 3,471,086 ZERO-SETTING DEVICE Henri Soupenne, Clamart, France, assignor to Compagnie des Compteurs, Paris, France, a company of France Filed Feb. 15, 1968, Ser. No. 705,845 Claims priority, applicgtsiog France, Feb. 21, 1967,

9 Int. Cl. G06c 15/42 US. Cl. 235-144 3 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Indicating mechanisms, particularly for liquid volumes and prices thereof are known, such as those used for gasstation pumps, and also the subsidiary mechanisms designed in a similar way to predetermine those quantities and eventually to print them.

The drums carrying figures or digits of such indicating mechanisms have to be reset to zero, and various known devices are provided to obtain this result. The resetting operation has to be performed through low work means, either to relieve work of the operator, or to combine those means with automatic resetting systems taking their energy from the measuring mechanism, without affecting the accuracy of the measure. Moreover, said resetting must be made in only one operation, and this is not possible with conventional mechanisms which display the figure 1 at the rank of tenths for example, because of the positive drive from the figure 0 to the figurel of that drum when the units drum accidently overpasses the figure 0 if it has received too strong an impulse. It then becomes necessary to make a supplementary operation to obtain the resetting to zero in a convenient way.

The present invention has for its object the resetting to zero of the drums with a minimum of work, and by simpler and more accurate means than the previously known ones.

For this purpose there is provided block-ing or locking means for each drum, said means acting at the moment when the figure 9 of a drum appears on the totalizator, and ceasing to act when all the drums showing the figure 9 are simultaneously turned to the figure 0. This is accomplished by the rotation of the drive shaft of the resetting system which completes its operation, in the same manner as in the course of normal computing, when the counter being at the maximum of its counting capacity, for example 9999, goes back to the figure 0000.

Other characteristics of the invention will be clear from the following description which refers to the accompanying drawings showing an illustrative embodiment of the present invention in which:

FIG. 1 is a partial longitudinal cross sect-ion of the device of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a section taken along line II-II of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a section taken along line III-III of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 4 and 5 are diagrammatic elevations showing characteristic positions of some parts of the device of the preceding figures.

FIG. 6 is a diagrammatic section corresponding roughly to FIG. 2 and illustrating a characteristic position.

FIG. 1 shows the device having a plurality of indicating drums 1, 1a 1n each one including a hub 2 hired States Patent 0 mounted on a shaft 3. The drums 1 to In include at the periphery thereof numerals 4 from figure 0 to 9, which are arranged to appear through a window 5 of a mask 6 diagrammatically illustrated on FIG. 3. The hubs 2 of each drum are connected to the shaft 3 by way of ratchets 7 mounted on the insides of the drums, said ratchets may, as shown in FIG. 2, engage a longitudinal slot 8 provided in the shaft 3, that is to say the ratchets 7 constitute, so to speak, a free wheel mechanism allowing said drums to turn freely on the shaft 3 when they are driven in the direction designated by the arrow but make it possible to drive said drums 1 to 111 when the shaft 3 is itself driven in the direction of the arrow f for example by means of a handle 9.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, each drum is rigidly connected to a ring 10, hereinafter called a locking member or circle. This locking circle has a smooth periphery and has two teeth 11 and 12 separated by a space 13. The drawing shows, and more particularly FIG. 1, that said teeth 11 and 12 hereinafter called teeth for the transferred amount extend laterally from the periphery of the ring 10.

On the opposite side of each drum 1 and rigidly connected thereto is pinion 14, the teeth 15 of which are truncated at their ends so that the radius is R (FIGS. 4 and 5). According to the invention one of the teeth of the gear 14, i.e. the tooth 16, is not truncated so that the end of this tooth will follow, when the drums are turned, a circle of radius R (FIGS. 4 and 5), said tooth 16 is hereinafter called the high tooth.

FIG. 6 shows that the radius R of tooth 16 corresponds to the radius of teeth 11 and 12 of the locking circle 10. In addition to supporting the drums 1 to In, the shaft 3 carries a cam 17, as seen in FIGS. 1 and 3. Said cam, Which is circular as shown in FIG. 3, is provided with a stop drive 17a and a drive ramp 17b, to engage a catch 18 formed on one of the wings 19 of a stirrup-piece, designated by the reference numeral 20 which includes another wing 19a (FIG. 1). The stirrup-piece 20 is mounted on an axle 21 and in turn supports, an axle 22 extending parallel to shaft 3. The axle 22 supports pinions 23 which register the amount transferred and hereinafter called transfer pinions. Said pinions 23 comprise .a first gear 24 which may be brought into engagement, as explained in the fol lowing, with the gear 14 of the drums, and a second gear 24a identical to the gear 24 from which it is separated by a reinforcement wall 25, said wall may be eliminated and is essentially provided for supplying an added strength to said pinion to permit reducing the width of the teeth. Finally, the transfer pinions 23 include a third gear 24b which are formed by an extension of alternate teeth of the gear 24a. The. gear 24b is disposed in a plane passing through the locking circle 10, while the gear 24a is disposed in a plane passing through the protruding part of the teeth 11 and 12 of said locking circle 10.

In this manner and as shown in FIG. 2, when a drum turns, two teeth of gear 24b, here shown as teeth 24b and 2411 bear on the smooth periphery of the locking circle 10, preventing the transfer pinion 23 from rotating said pinion being then locked by the locking circle 10. When one of the drums, drum 1 for example, being the drum for registering units, has turned to register the figure 9, then one of the teeth of the gear 24a, being here the tooth 24a is engaged by the tooth 11 of the locking circle which causes the corresponding transfer pinion 23 to turn, the tooth 2412 of said pinion engaging the space 13 so that the pinion 23 is rotated until two new teeth of the gear 24b come to bear upon the smooth periphery of locking circle 10.

The rotation of the transfer pinion 23 is obviously transmitted by the gear 24 to the gear 14 of the drum 1a which rotates one unit so that the succeeding figure of this drum is brought to appear in front of the window 5.

The working described above is produced when the catch 18 is in engagement with stop 17a of the cam 17, that is to say when the totalizing mechanism is driven by a mechanism not shown but indicated by a gear 26 (FIG.

1) driving the gear 14 of the first drum.

As shown in FIG. 4, the drive of gears 14 by means of truncated teeth 15 engaging the transfer pinions 23 will cease when axle 22 and the transfer pinions 23 carried thereon are raised so that the axle 22 is brought to a distance D from the axis of the shaft 3. Moreover, in this case one of the teeth of the gear 24b may still slidingly engage on the periphery of locking circle 10 to prevent any hazardous rotation of the transfer pinions 23, especially when the high tooth 16 of the gear 14 engages with one of the teeth of the gear 24 of said transfer pinions. In effect, in order that said high tooth 16 will not engage with one of the teeth of the gear 24 of the transfer pinion, the distance between the axle 22 and the axis of the shaft 3 would have to be at least equal to D as shown in FIG. 5.

The raising of the transfer pinions 23 by the raising of axle 22 supportedby the wings 19 and 19a of the stirruppiece 20, is carried out by the cam 17 so that, when the mechanism is in its normal working position (FIG. 3), that is to say when the drums are driven by the gear 26, the distance between the axle 22 and the axis of the shaft 3 is equal to A (FIG. 1). The distance A represents the in-gear position of the gears and pinions, especially of gears 24 and 15. The distance between axle 22 and shaft 3 is increased to measure B (FIG. 1) when axle 22 is raised by the cam 17 to bring the catch 18 onto the circular bearing of said cam.

By construction, the distances mentioned are such that:

Moreover, also by construction, the position of the high tooth 16 of the gear 14 is such that said gear 24 engages a tooth of the corresponding transfer pinion 23 (FIG. 6) when the drum 1, 1a or In displays the figure 9 in front of the window 5.

In such circumstances, when the mechanism has been used to totalize a flow output, for example, and it then becomes necessary to reset the drums to zero, this may be done as follows:

By means of the handle 9 (FIG. 1), the shaft 3 is actuated to rotate 360 in the direction of the arrow f (FIG. 2), that 'is to say in the direction by which said shaft will drive the drums 1 to in by the ratchets 7 as they engage slot 8. First of all, the ramp 17b of the cam 17 causes the catch 18 and consequently, the stirrup piece 20 pivoted on axle 21 to be raised so that the axle 22 is moved to position 22a as is shown in FIG. 1, and the distance between said axle 22 and the shaft 3 is then B. In this position, the transfer pinions 23 can not drive gears 14 because the teeth of the gear 24 are slightly above the truncated teeth 15 of the gears 14, and one of the teeth of the gear 24b bears on the locking circle to prevent the rotation of said transfer pinions 23 as explained above as shown in FIG. 6.

As the movement transmitted to the shaft 3 by the handle 9 or by any other mechanism, may be relatively fast and the inertia of the drums 1 to In being obviously more than zero, it could happen that said drums will go on turning after said handle 9 has turned 360, so that the figure 0 of each drum would not appear in front of the windows 5. However, this can not happen in the case of the present invention because, at the moment when the figure 9 of each drum appears in the window 5, the high tooth 16 engages one of the teeth of the gear 24 of the transfer pinions 23 which are locked as mentioned above. This happens when the shaft 3 has been turned a of a revolution or 324 and, consequently, all the drums display the figure 9 in the window 5. During the last tenth of a turn of shaft 3, the catch 18 engages the stop 17a of the cam 17 which brings the axle 22 to its previous position at a distance A from the shaft 3, and all the drums then pass from the figure 9 to the figure 0, said rotation being followed by a come to the maximum of its counting capacity and thus passes again automatically to zero.

While there has been described and illustrated an embodiment of the invention, it is to be understood that it is not intended to be restricted solely thereto but it is intended to cover all modifications thereof which would be apparent to one skilled in the art which come within the spirit of the invention.

I claim:

1. A totalizing mechanism having a plurality of indicating digital drums arranged in series on a main shaft and means for positively rotating said drums on said shaft to indicate a series of progressively increasing values on said digital drums including means for resetting said drums to indicate zero which comprises:

ratchet means allowing said drums to rotate freely in one direction on the main shaft and to be positively driven by the main shaft when the shaft is driven in the same direction,

a locking circle rotatable with each drum and having teeth engaging means at only one location on the periphery thereof,

a gear rotatable with each digital drum and having a plurality of teeth, one of which extends a greater distance from the center of said gear than the remaining teeth,

an axle having its axis parallel to the axis of the main shaft,

a plurality of interconnecting pinions rotatably mounted on said axle, each pinion having a plurality of sets of gear teeth which engage respectively with the teeth of the rotatable gear and with the locking circle of the proceeding drum to prevent rotation of said pinion except when said pinion engages said teeth engaging means at the one location.

means for positively rotating the main shaft for resetting the drums to zero,

and means operable by said means for rotating the main shaft for displacing the axle with respect to the main shaft while maintaining the parallel relationship whereby each interconnecting pinion will engage only the single extended tooth of the associated rotatable gear while continuing to engage the associated locking circle to prevent rotation of said pinion except when said pinion engages said teeth engaging means at the one location on said locking circle.

said axle displacing means being operable to return the axle to its original position parallel to the main shaft when the digital drums have been reset to zero.

2. A totalizing mechanism as claimed in claim 1 and further comprising means for viewing only one number on each digital drum at a time and in which said single extended tooth of said rotatable gear engages the gear teeth of said interconnecting pinion only when the figure 9 on the digital drum can be viewed in said viewing means.

3; A totalizing mechanism as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for displacing the axle with respect to the main shaft comprise a cam element secured to said main shaft and means operable by said cam for displacing said axle while maintaining a parallel relationship with said main shaft when said main shaft is positively driven.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,046,835 12/1912 Moon 235l44 2,444,570 7/1948 Lawrence et al. 235144 2,494,955 1/1950 Mayer et al 235-144 RICHARD B. WILKINSON, Primary Examiner STANLEY A. WAL, Assistant Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

